"Oh... although I doubt it," Vivien was the first to respond.
"Did you come up with something?"
"Well, no, it's unlikely to be possible, but there are several points on the body where if you apply force, you can stop the heart."
"Hmm, yes, that's actually possible," the assassin nodded convincingly, "some members of our guild also know about these techniques."
"Yes, but for that, you need close contact, and I thought it's unlikely that someone could have killed them using this method."
"But why not check?" another female assassin chimed in, "to kill instantly, you'd have to deliver powerful blows that would leave bruises. Check their neck, upper chest, and lower back."
"Hmm, there too?" Reines obediently went over to the corpses.
The rustling of sheets.
"Do we really have to be here?" Asura's voice came from behind.
"Well, what if our help is needed?" Grain also didn't seem too pleased.
"But it's a naked dead man right here, and he's already starting to turn blue... brr."
"No," Reines, wiping her hands, returned to the crystal. "No traces, so it's not poison or physical injuries. Any other possibilities?"
"I think only magic remains," I looked at the mages present at the table. "But we need to know the circumstances of the death."
"I can help with that," a voice unfamiliar to me came from Katrina's side, and a girl with short chestnut hair appeared on the crystal. "I was in the palace guard when the attack happened."
"Oh, the head of the city guard? I recall you refused to help me," the master assassin smirked maliciously.
"You understand I couldn't trust you, but if the princess allows, I'll help now."
"Your help would be greatly appreciated," Katrina smiled at her longtime friend.
"Yes," the girl blushed slightly. "By the time I arrived at the end of the attack, I saw three of the assassins still alive among the wounded. They were brought to the head of the guard for questioning, but after a couple of questions, they just dropped dead."
"And they clutched their hearts or something, or was there any bleeding?" Reines asked probing questions.
"Well, before dying, they twitched as if having a seizure and then immediately went limp."
"Any external signs, flashes of fire, or something else?"
"Mm, no, they were lying on the ground before that, so we assumed they had ingested poison while no one was watching."
"Hmm, well, what do you think, fellow mages? Any hypotheses?"
I looked at my fellow guild members; almost all types of magic were represented among us, and surely, there had to be a suitable one for this case.
"Lightning," Katrina said, conjuring a small discharge between her fingertips, "a single strike can stop the heart. However, the discharge would need to be very powerful and hit the heart directly; otherwise, it would only cause temporary paralysis."
"Hmm, logical, but..." Reines stepped away from the crystal and returned a minute later, "as I thought, there are no traces of the lightning entering the body. There should have been small burn marks, but there are none. Any other possibilities?"
"What if someone used other elemental magics to kill discreetly?" I looked at Seleria, "You mentioned that you can't use that technique for long because it puts a strain on your blood."
"Hmm, I never thought of using magic like that... But in theory, if you pass heat through the blood, you can make it boil, and the person would die of suffocation."
"If we go that far, the same trick could be done with air magic," the crystal showed Leira, "you could block the airflow in the lungs, and the person would die. It's also possible to stop blood flow, but without close contact with a water mage, it's problematic."
"You could use earth magic to block the blood vessels. If you create a sand plug and seal it closer to the heart, but that's very complex magic," Grain added.
"Grain, I'm afraid neither you nor I could pull off such a trick without extensive preparation, and I haven't heard of any earth mages so talented," Levris sighed dejectedly.
"Alright, I understand your suggestions. Let's check now," Reines covered her hand with a dark aura and disappeared from view.
"Whoa, Lady Reines, what are you doing?!" Asura's screams made me uneasy.
"Well, I had to find a way to get inside somehow," the indifferent tone of the necromancer was a little unsettling in this conversation. "Hm-hm-hm, everything's fine here and up a bit."
A splash and a soft crunch.
"Oops, almost broke something, but... no, everything's fine here too," Reines returned to the crystal, wiping her hands stained with something red. "No traces, blood circulation is clear, there's enough air for breathing, and I didn't find any clots or other nasty things. It seems elemental magic is not the cause here."
"Hmm, not elemental magic then? What about angel or demon magic? Could they be capable of such a thing?" I glanced at Seleria again.
"Angels... they might have such spells, but they usually come with such a display of light that it's hard to overlook."
"And demon magic? They can seal souls in artifacts."
"That's true, but then at the moment of death, they should have had those artifacts on them."
We looked at the crystal.
"No, the killers didn't have any magical items on them," Victoria shook her head.
"I also didn't find anything suspicious in their belongings, just a couple of bombs with magical dust, if that's what you mean," Reines addressed the red-haired princess.
"It could be anything, with demon inscriptions carved on it."
"Well, in that case, there's definitely nothing like that here."
"Lady Reines, what about necromancy?" It was the only obvious option left, one that the necromancer was trying to avoid.
"Instantly killing someone... In principle, it is possible with necromancy, but it can't be done without proper preparation. Killing with decomposition magic is much easier, no need to bother. "
"You're right, but you can extract the soul from the victim's body, right?"
"Hmm, I can, but the process is not instantaneous. To drain the soul from an adult man, it would take at least a week. Besides, the final stage doesn't necessarily require direct contact. The remaining essence of the soul could be expended even when the necromancer is far away. But then, that's how it should have been done with all the killers; after all, we didn't know who among them would be captured, and as we know, some managed to escape."
"Is there no way to speed up the process?"
"Well, it's possible, but for that, you need the Death Mistress artifacts. One of them belongs to our necromancer, and the other is possessed only by the Death Summoner. As you can imagine, neither of them would have helped the killers."
"Sigh," I leaned back on my chair, "and there are no other options..."
"What about stopping the heart with a more brute method?," the assassin sitting across from us looked at Rizel, "like how she was able to stop my hand."
The power of necromancers, not only controlling poisons and souls. Shadow magic and telekinesis used directly...
"Riz, could you compress someone's heart to make them die on the spot?"
"Compress the heart? I've never tried," Rizel hesitantly extended her hand to me, and thick black smoke slowly began to creep towards my legs.
The smoke dissipated, but I felt something hostile moving under my skin.
"Stop-stop, that's enough!" I halted the necromancer when the invisible touch reached my heart, "I see that it's entirely possible."
"An interesting way to use magic; we should test it."
Reines disappeared from the crystal again.